Public awareness campaigns
In a perfect world, public interest organisations would not need any publicity for themselves. All of their efforts would be used to promote the cause per se.
But the reality is that organisations need public awareness to do their job. They need it, for instance, to raise funds. Donors traditionally seek comfort and security in their donations. They are less likely to fund upstarts or obscure organisations. Public awareness is definitely needed for advocacy. Policymakers listen to organisations that they feel have more public pull. Public awareness is also useful for behaviour change. The key is to produce a a reasonable campaign that does not promote the organisation beyond reason. One that does not cost more than it should. One that is not launched for competitive reasons.
A good public awareness campaign is focussed and well targeted. It delivers a relevant message to a specific audience. Utmost care is taken to ensure the message is clear, not hidden beneath layers of imagery or long winded text. Keep it simple and relevant. This said, it does have to look appealing. If it doesn't, no one is going to pay attention to it or remember it. It also has to use media to its fullest. No sense in producing a campaign if you cannot disseminate it. The otjiwarongo consulting team is there to accompany you as you make these choices. They are also able to implement them. Together, you should be able to produce a powerful and useful campaign.
Job types:
Public awareness campaigns service is divided into three job types:
- Strategy by consultation
- Strategy by brief investigation
- Concept and implementation
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From our perspective, there are two types of public awareness: awareness of issues and awareness of organisation. In the latter, we strive to make known an organisation and its work. In the former, we labour to promote an issue. In both cases, we always recommend you stay highly focussed. The best awareness campaigns are those that do not insert every imaginable message. |
Options: / First launch: 1985
Case study
Decent Work Campaign
Planning a major international campaign is a major responsibility. We have been involved in many but there is one that we were particularly proud to be a part of, the ILO’s Decent Work Campaign. No, we did not plan this campaign entirely but we did contribute the main paradigm and then delivered the main messages and tools. The end result was a campaign that in addition to traditional output included a set of unique mirror-based structures placed in airports, notably Geneva Cointrin. Did we change anything? Well, from a public awareness standpoint you could argue that one extra aware person is already a valuable addition and as it happens, at least in an informal survey, we have found the degree of awareness around these tools was extremely high among passengers transiting through the airport. Of great satisfaction, during a later high level appointment, one of our clients showed us pictures of the displays that he had intuitively taken with his smartphone.
otjiwarongo consulting provides strategic, media and communications consulting to UN organisations, civil society and governments. It supplies analysis, strategy, content, visibility and resource mobilisation.